In A Little While
by fourandtwenty
Summary: After having a fight with his wife, Nymphadora Tonks, a drunken Remus Lupin encounters a waspish Hestia Jones in the middle of an empty Muggle bar.


**In A Little While**

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Remus Lupin wasn't entirely sure how he ended up in a pub in Muggle London. He knew he'd left for a reason, and it had been a damn good one to boot, but by the time he downed hissixth drink, the details were a little sketchy.

"You gonna be wantin' another one, mister?" asked the barkeep, a stout man in his mid-forties who looked worse for the wear. Remus eyed his nearly-empty glass almost accusingly before nodding.

"Looks like."

"Makes that two," a vaguely familiar female voice announced, and Remus heard the legs of the barstool next to him scrape viciously against the floor just before someone plopped down next to him. He inclined his head politely in the woman's direction, not bothering to look up. The ring on his left ring finger would hopefully speak loudly enough for any hopes the woman may have harbored to be violently and brutally squashed.

Not that he was feeling vindictive or anything of the sorts.

"You look like you're smashed," she commented in an irritating mild tone. Remus automatically growled and glanced her way.

"Who the hell do you think you are, telling me when I'm smashed?" he slurred, his vision a bit too fuzzy to immediately recognize the woman. "Do I know you?"

"Yes," she answered rather shortly, and when the barkeep came back with two glasses of bourbon on the rocks, she downed hers with no more than two swallows. "I work at the Ministry, remember?"

He squinted a bit, ignoring the glass in front of him. "Maybe. Which department?"

She eyed him, and he noticed how pretty she was. He shouldn't have been thinking those sorts of things though, he reckoned. His wife wouldn't appreciate it too much if she found out. He wouldn't appreciate it too much if his wife was having those sorts of thoughts about another man, either.

"I work with Nymphadora," she informed him before ordering another drink. He blinked.

"You do?" Remus frowned, struggling to remember. "You—you're one of the older Aurors, right?"

Her pale blue eyes flashed with steel. "Be careful who you're calling old, Lupin. I'm not the one who married someone thirteen years my junior, remember?"

He remembered—he remembered all too well, and he really didn't appreciate how well she was making him remember. Remus didn't want to think about his wife right then.

In an attempt to save face, he shrugged as nonchalantly as his drunkenness would allow. "You're not old. Aren't I older than you? I must be. I feel like I'm about a billion right now, if it's any consolation."

She shook her head in an uncannily familiar way. "You certainly aren't a billion, I'm sure, but if it helps, you're beginning to look it."

He couldn't stop the growl that shot out from behind his clenched jaw, and to his bitter satisfaction, she looked about as scared as he wanted her to feel. Her fear melted into grim irritation, however, and Remus felt a flutter in the pit of his stomach when he met her glare with one of his own. Although admittedly, he wasn't sure whether it was her or the alcohol talking.

Now he recognized her properly.

"Hestia Jones," he mumbled, taking a sip of his drink and motioning for the barkeep to serve him another one before he finished this off. "Order member, too. I must be pissed off my bloody arse. You weren't at the wedding, were you?"

"I was," she said, swirling the ice cubes around in her glass. She brought the rim to her lips and a cube slipped down the side of the glass into her mouth. Hestia chewed thoughtfully for a moment. "It's about time they tied the knot. It was getting ridiculous, really."

"'Mione'll make an honest man of him," Remus mumbled, rubbing his blurry eyes with the palms of his hands for a good ten seconds while he tried to focus. "M'not one for weddings, but it was nice. Tonks 'n I never had a real wedding, y'know."

"I know," Hestia said in a terse tone that rather surprised Remus. He pulled his eyes away from his hands to glance at her, but she stared straight ahead, past the barkeep, focusing on apparently nothing in particular. Blinking a few times, he moved from his half-finished drink to the fresh one the barkeep had served. Noticing it was a bit fuller than usual, he made a mental note he was certain he'd forget before the end of the night to tip the man well. He took a great gulp of the drink, closing his eyes and sighing loudly as it slid into his stomach.

"Asked her if she wanted to do things properly," Remus continued once the drink was completely downed. "She was insulted, I 'pose, 'n we fought. Kicked me out 'n told me to come back when I got my head on straight."

Hestia's eyebrow rose in amusement, and she gave him a sidelong glance that struck another familiar chord inside of Remus. "You should have thought before you spoke then."

Remus nodded gravely in agreement. Tonks was notorious for having a vicious temper under the right circumstances, and he managed to provoke her more often than he would have liked. As he turned to look at Hestia, however, he began to feel a bit light-headed, and quite suddenly the fuzzy feeling dropped from his mind. He blinked a few times and shook his head automatically.

"What'd you do?" he asked, confused as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"I gave you a sobering potion," Hestia said curtly. "You were about to pass out."

Remus opened his mouth to protest, but at that moment another very urgent need caught him off-guard.

"Toilet's around the corner." Hestia turned to give him a look that made his insides squirm—or at least he thought it was the look she gave him—and without another word, he hopped off the barstool and walked as quickly as he could in the direction she'd pointed, hoping he wasn't too obvious.

His robes were unbuttoned by the time he hurried into the toilet and his fingers were already working on his trousers. Squirming to the first urinal he saw, he dropped his drawers and proceeded to take the most satisfying piss of his life. Unable to resist, he closed his eyes and groaned a bit loudly, unaware and, in all honestly, rather uncaring of any potential ill effects that might have on any unfortunately passersby.

"Enjoying yourself?"

The sound of her voice nearly made him make a mess as he simultaneously tried to spin around and hold himself back from doing so.

"Hestia," he finally said in a measured tone, his jaw clenched tightly together. "This is the _men's_ room, in case you haven't noticed."

"Oh, I noticed," she assured him in that cocky voice he was beginning to loathe. "Makes me wonder what you're doing here."

In an instant he had whirled around—having finished his business—and pinned her against the wall. His trousers were now somewhere around his ankles, and it really was a miracle he hadn't tripped in the process. His face was mere inches from hers, and he could feel her hot breath on his neck. She was shorter than he'd anticipated, and he'd nearly choked her.

Instead of yelping with surprise, as he'd expected her to, she merely continued to glare at him. "What would your wife say if she saw you pinning a strange woman against the wall in the men's toilets—with your bits exposed for the world to see?"

"I'm sure she wouldn't mind too much," he growled, an inch away from doing something he knew he'd regret. His temper was already walking a knife's edge and Hestia's undeserved barbs weren't doing anything to help. It was also the day before the full moon, and his need for violence was higher than he could ever remember.

"I'd appreciate it if you'd let me go. I think your wife would, too," she said shortly, which made Remus only pin her harder. Her eyes narrowed and Remus detected a flicker of pain.

Good.

"Let me tell you something about my wife," he said in a dangerously soft voice. "Yes, I am thirteen years older than her. When I first visited Sirius outside of Hogwarts, his cousin Andromeda was there with her newborn daughter, _'Dora_. The first time I held her, she threw up on me—and you know what? It was love at first sight. From that moment on, I spent as much time as I could with Sirius' family.

"I can't tell you the number of times Sirius, James, and I babysat for 'Dora. During the summers I saw her almost as much as I saw Sirius, and she was a lot of the reason I stayed in the magical community after James was killed and Sirius incarcerated. At first I thought the love I felt for her was the sort of love a brother feels for a sister much, much younger than him—maybe it was. But the last time I saw her as a child was when she was eight, right after the Longbottoms were tortured. After that I didn't see her until she was twenty-one. _Twenty-one_." To emphasis his point, he closed the distance between him and Hestia, pressing his body up against hers. The smell of her desire flooded his nostrils, and he could no more stop his body from reacting than he could the sun from shining.

"She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen." His tone, still angry and an inch away from violence, nevertheless softened slightly as he continued to speak. "I needed a place to stay, and she immediately invited me to stay at her flat with her. That's when it started; she wasn't the little girl whose nappies I'd changed anymore. The tension was terrible, living with that sort of temptation and not being able to do a bloody thing about it. One day I accidentally walked in on her in the shower, and instead of screaming and yelling at me to get out, you know what she did? She _invited me in_." He chuckled harshly at the memory. "It was a done deal after that. She is and always will be the only women I have _ever_ loved. Do you understand that, Hestia?"

Hestia's eyes had hardened considerably during his speech, but she nodded tersely nevertheless. The thick silence hung between them for the longest seconds of Remus' life before he finally bent his head and closed the distance between them, kissing her with all the anger that boiled within him.

She wasn't at all surprised, or if she was, she didn't act it. She kissed him back with the same vigor, her body arching into his as her right hip rubbed up against his growing erection. He growled and, pinning her arms above her, reached down with his free hand and quickly undid her robes. She was wearing a skirt—a very, very short skirt—and Remus felt a moment of relief. Trousers would have been far too tricky to deal with.

His hand slid up her thigh and, with a jolt, he realized she wasn't wearing knickers either.

"You planned this, didn't you?" he muttered into her ear even as he plunged two fingers inside of her. Her insides were practically dripping. It was only a matter of seconds before he maneuvered himself between her legs and plunged into her depths. Her strangled cry was all he needed to urge himself onwards, and still pinning her firmly against the wall, he thrust into her violently, over and over and over again as her cries grew louder and louder. Her forehead was pressed to his shoulder and she was biting down on his white collar to try to suppress the animalistic sounds coming from her throat. Finally, with a strangled groan, he came, spilling into her even as her walls convulsed around him. She finally gave up and all but screamed, her legs—which, he just noticed, were both now wrapped tightly around Remus' waist—pulling him as far into her as the pair could manage.

Panting heavily, Remus released her hands from the wall, making sure not to back away so she wouldn't fall. He slowly eased out of her with a soft sucking sound and, when her feet touched the ground, he bent down and kissed her hungrily once more.

"You know how much I hate it when you do that," he murmured, running his fingers through her dark hair. She returned his kiss, her fingers gently massaging his neck, before she took a step away from him.

"Maybe if you stopped drinking yourself into a coma every time we have the slightest of tiffs, I wouldn't have to," she pointed out, reaching down to straighten out her skirt.

"Maybe if you didn't kick me out of the house, I wouldn't," Remus retorted as he returned his boxers and trousers to their proper position.

"Maybe if you weren't such a stubborn pigheaded arse when we fight, I wouldn't kick you out of the house."

"Maybe if you didn't infuriate me to the point of stubborn pigheaded arseness…" he trailed off and sighed. "I'm sorry."

She leaned up against the wall, her arms crossed loosely over her chest. "I'm not. Best fuck we've had all week. Make sure you wash your hands before coming to bed." Moving forward and standing on her tiptoes, she gave Remus a gently, lingering kiss on the lips. "Love you, Rem. Be safe and come home before dawn this time, please."

"I will," Remus promised. "Love you too, 'Dora."

With that, Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin shot her husband a wry grin just as she Disapparated. Sighing to himself, Remus shook his head and moved to the sink to wash his hands before returning to the nearly-empty pub to pay the bartender and then depart for home.

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_In a little while  
Surely you'll be mine  
In a little while I'll be there _

In a little while  
This hurt will hurt no more  
I'll be home, love

When the night takes a deep breath  
And the daylight has no end  
If I crawl, if I come crawling home  
Will you be there

In a little while  
I won't be blown by every breeze  
Friday night running  
To Sunday on my knees

That girl, that girl  
She's mine  
And I've know her since

Since she was a little girl  
With Spanish eyes  
Oh, when I saw her  
In a pram they pushed her by

My, how you've grown  
Well it's been  
It's been a little while

Slow down my bleeding heart  
A man dreams one day to fly  
A man takes a rocketship into the skys  
He lives on star that's dying in the night  
And follows in the trail  
The scatter of light

Turn it on  
Turn it on  
You turn me on

Slow down my bleeding heart  
Slowly, slowly love  
Slow down my bleeding heart  
Slowly, slowly love  
Slow down my beating heart  
Slowly, slowly love

- "In A Little While," U2


End file.
